FOR a certain generation of English football fan, Michael Owen provided the defining moment of an era. There was something charmingly 1990s about his slaloming dribble and strike against Argentina in Saint-Etienne. Maybe it was the baggy shirts. Perhaps it was the sight of Paul Ince in England’s midfield and David Batty on the bench. 

Or maybe it was another sign of England’s newfound swagger on the global stage. The Gallagher Brothers, Tony Blair, Michael Owen… these were the faces of a new zeitgeist and the future of the latter was arguably the brightest of the lot (Oasis had already started to slide down the other side of the mountain with Be Here Now, after all). Owen’s goal at France ’98 wasn’t just a mark of its time, but a product of it.

Like the hazy optimism of the late 90s, though, Owen quickly faded. When his star shone, it shone brightly. Owen twice finished as the Premier League’s top scorer, winning the Ballon d’Or at the age of just 21 and scoring 158 goals in just 297 appearances for Liverpool – an impressive rate in the pre-Lionel Messi/Cristiano Ronaldo age.

There is an important point I'd like to make about Michael Owen. While they may have fallen out and the relationship turned sour more than a decade ago, Shearer had never discussed it once in media or publicly criticised him until he was attacked in Owen's book this week #NUFC

— Luke Edwards (@LukeEdwardsTele) September 6, 2019

When Owen signed for Real Madrid in the summer of 2004, he did so not in the way that Thomas Gravesen and Jonathan Woodgate did, but as a more than worthy addition to a side that already boasted Ronaldo, Roberto Carlos, Raul, Luis Figo, David Beckham and Zinedine Zidane. He was a bona fide ‘Galactico.’

15 years on, Owen is not remembered as the era-defining legend he always promised to be, but as a figure who never found fulfilment both as a player and a person. His Twitter spat with former England and Newcastle United teammate Alan Shearer last week put him back in the spotlight, but only served to highlight how unloved he is.

Despite having played for some of the biggest clubs in world football, there is not a fanbase out there that claims Owen as their own. The way he left Liverpool still rankles with some on Merseyside, and that’s before considering how the striker’s decision to sign for Manchester United later in his career affected his standing among the Anfield support. 

Serious question. Does any club Michael Owen played for actually like him

— Mark Goldbridge (@markgoldbridge) September 5, 2019

In Spain, Owen never found the consistency to truly endear himself to the notoriously tough to please Madridistas and in leaving the Santiago Bernabeu the striker become something of a mercenary. It was clear at the time that Owen never really wanted to join Newcastle United and even more so in the years since. “From a career perspective,” he writes in his new book, “there was no doubt in my mind that a move to the North East was a downward step.” Some Newcastle booksellers are even refusing to even stock the 39-year-old’s new book over slights made to the city. 

When Owen retired from the professional game at the end of the 2012/13 season, he did so to only a smattering of polite applause in his final appearance for Stoke City, a team whose style he never suited and for whom he only played eight times in two years. It wasn’t exactly the sort of send-off you would have envisaged for Owen when he scored that astonishing goal in Saint-Etienne as a teenager.

It’s true that injuries hindered Owen, stopping him from being the player he always promised he would become. Had he done that, had his career been glittering and prolonged, supporters would have got over some of the decisions and comments he has made in recent years. In so many other ways, though, Owen has contributed to the bitterness he has experienced recently.